| Artist: Nat Hentoff |
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| Wikipedia: Nat Hentoff |
| Nat Hentoff | |
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| Born | June 10, 1925 Boston, Massachusetts |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | columnist, historian, novelist, music critic |
Nathan Irving "Nat" Hentoff (born June 10, 1925) is an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media and writes regularly on jazz and country music for The Wall Street Journal.
Hentoff was formerly a columnist for The Village Voice, JazzTimes, Legal Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Progressive, Editor & Publisher and Free Inquiry. He was a staff writer for The New Yorker, and his writing has also been published in The New York Times, Jewish World Review, The Atlantic, The New Republic and Commonweal.
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Hentoff was born in Boston, Massachusetts and graduated from the Boston Latin School. He was awarded his B.A. with the highest honors from Northeastern University and did graduate work at Harvard University. In 1950, he was a Fulbright fellow at the Sorbonne in Paris, and from 1953 through 1957 he was associate editor of Down Beat magazine. In 1958, Hentoff cofounded The Jazz Review magazine, which he coedited along with Martin Williams until 1961. His career in broadcast journalism began in the closing days of WWII as a broadcaster on a local Boston radio station WMEX. Among his early assignments were the live broadcasts of professional wrestling from the old Boston Arena. In the late forties he hosted two significant radio shows on WMEX, Jazz Album and From Bach To Bartok.
On December 31, 2008, the Village Voice, which had regularly published Hentoff's commentary and criticism for fifty years, announced that he had been terminated.[1] In February, 2009, Hentoff joined the libertarian Cato Institute as a senior fellow.[2]
In 1972 Hentoff was named a Guggenheim Fellow.[3] He was awarded the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award in 1980 for his columns on law and criminal justice. In 1985 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Laws by Northeastern University.[4] In 1995 Hentoff was given the National Press Foundation's Award for lifetime distinguished contributions to journalism.[5] In 2004 Hentoff was named one of six NEA Jazz Masters by the US National Endowment for the Arts, the first non-musician to win this award. That same year, the Boston Latin School honored him as alumnus of the year. In October 2005, Hentoff was honored by the Human Life Foundation at their third annual Great Defender of Life dinner.
In 2002 Nat Hentoff became a member of the Board of Directors of The Jazz Foundation of America. [6] He has worked with The Jazz Foundation to save the homes and the lives of America's elderly jazz and blues musicians including musicians that survived Hurricane Katrina. Hentoff has written multiple articles about the Jazz Foundation of America for The Wall Street Journal, [7], and the Village Voice [8] bringing attention the the plight of America's pioneering musicians of jazz and blues.
Hentoff is known as a civil libertarian, free speech activist, anti-death penalty advocate, pro-life advocate, and he is often critical of the ideological left. He also supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
While once a longtime supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Hentoff has become a vocal critic of the organization for its advocacy of government-enforced university and workplace speech codes.[9] He serves on the board of advisors for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, another civil liberties group. Hentoff's book, Free Speech for Me — But Not for Thee, outlines his views on free speech and excoriates those who he feels favor censorship in any form.
Hentoff was critical of Bush Administration policies such as the Patriot Act and other civil liberties implications of the recent push for "homeland security." He was also strongly critical of Clinton Administration policies such as the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.
In February 2003, Hentoff signed a letter circulated by Social Democrats, USA advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq on human rights grounds, citing reports detailing Hussein's disregard for fundamental liberties. In March and April of that year Hussein was deposed by a US-led invasion, launching the ongoing Iraq war. In summer 2003, Hentoff wrote a column for the Washington Times in which he supported Tony Blair's humanitarian justifications for the war. He also criticized the Democratic Party for casting doubt on President Bush's pre-war assertions about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction in an election year.
Despite what are generally considered liberal views on domestic policy and civil liberties, starting in the 1980s Hentoff articulated positions opposed to abortion, voluntary euthanasia and the selective medical treatment of severely disabled infants.[10] Hentoff has said that shortly after he "came out" as an opponent of abortion, several of his colleagues at The Village Voice stopped speaking to him. Hentoff has sardonically described himself as "a member of the Proud and Ancient Order of Stiff-Necked Jewish Atheists".[11][12]
Hentoff was one of the people to seek to publicize Fistgate, and he vigorously criticized the judicial gag order involved in the case.[13]
In an April 2008 column, Hentoff stated that, while he had been prepared to enthusiastically support Barack Obama in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, his view changed after looking into Obama's voting record on abortion. While Hentoff states that he has supported pro-choice candidates in various elections despite his opposition to abortion, he found Obama's positions on the issue extreme, especially Obama's opposition to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and Born Alive Infant Protection Act.[14]
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
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